


To Say Nothing of the Dog

by anyakindheart



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, and Steve is kind of a sap, but i'm pretty sure i would be able to explain the dynamics i've described, i think they are about 21-23 y.o., kind of Steve's POV, maybe slightly less or slightly more, seriously, there is always a chance of the heroes being ooc, this is post-canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 21:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13132791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anyakindheart/pseuds/anyakindheart
Summary: They meet a stray dog on their way home from Eli's parents' house.The dog is weird, Eli is excited, and Steve is utterly, completely, helplessly in love with Eli.





	To Say Nothing of the Dog

**Author's Note:**

> so this is HEAVILY inspired by a vaguely famous facebook post. i cannot retell that post right here because it contains spoilers to the text... even though the main intrigue in this fic is ABSOLUTELY obvious from the very beginning.......  
> but anyways. i have three (3) important notes:  
> 1\. I AM NOT A NATIVE SPEAKER, I HAVE LEARNT MY FAIR SHARE OF ENGLISH BY BINGE-WATCHING VARIOUS TV SHOWS!! i have lots of troubles with articles, prepositions and some grammar constructions, i hope this still leaves the text understandable and i would also like to highlight the fact that i'm always grateful for any corrections for my mistakes!!  
> 2\. i love using italics. you'll see.  
> 3\. this was supposed to be a super short text. a oneshot. 1k words TOPS. and would you look at me now :^)))
> 
> this is my first Creepslayerz fic (and my second fic written completely in another language, hooray!) and i want to dedicate it to the sweetest @ichisbutt from tumblr. thank you for being so nice to me! <3
> 
> also the title is obviously taken from Jerome K. Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat". 
> 
> (i'm pretty sure i have forgotten something important but isn't this life a dragon that loves staying untamed)

This was, without a doubt, the most weird-looking dog Steve has ever seen. 

It was tall, skinny and extremely dirty, with a creepishly long neck and a small head that looked asymmetrical and crumpled. To tell the truth, Steve would have even called the dog _ugly_ , if it wasn’t for beaming Eli, who was sitting on his knees in the tall dry grass next to the dog, patting its half-bald withers affectionately. 

“Look,” Eli said. “It’s so muddy! I bet it has fallen into a puddle or a swamp. And then the mud just dried out in the sun. It’s like wearing a mire armor. I bet it’s uncomfortable for the little guy.”

“I _am_ looking,” Steve said, abruptly. _The little guy_ was taller than Eli sitting on his knees, and something about the whole situation seemed disturbingly peculiar to Steve. The word “armor”, in addition to the size of this disproportionate dog, reminded him of some of the Arcadia Quests - the goblins and the trolls, and the Yellow Umbrella Stunt, and throwing their flour son into what looked similar to a Michelin man covered in starch glue. 

Nice memories. A little bit unsettling, but nice. 

The dog looked like a poorly shaped 3D-model of a tibetan fox. Its eyes stayed half-closed, expression completely indifferent while Eli’s palm was carefully making its way up the dog’s neck to finally rest between its two shabby fan-like ears. Eli gave the top of the dog’s head a friendly ruffle. Dirty, spiky fur emitted a small translucent cloud of grey dust into the air. 

The dog closed its eyes with what could be seen like some sort of content. 

Eli beamed. 

And Steve felt a particularly querulous twist crawling into the line of his mouth. 

It was not that he had anything against dogs - no, dogs were great. He loved his own dog in spades when he was little, but she was already ten years old when Steve was born, so they did not exactly get to spend much time together. And after Soap died, Steve’s dad said there would be no more pets in the house - not because he thought the wound of losing a friend will never heal enough for taking in another animal but because he was always irritated into oblivion when he found bits of her golden fur on his trousers and jackets. 

So - this was not it. Steve would love to get a dog. A cat. A parrot. Damn, an ever-silent tortoise or a hamster or a fish would be okay.

But there was something disturbing about this specific… pet. 

“This is an unnaturally long dog,” Steve said, trying to sound effortless and careful at the same time. The timing of the whole situation wasn’t the best as well - they still had about an hour of rocking the road till finally getting home. “Don’t you think it looks weird?”

Eli jerked up his head. The lenses of his eyeglasses caught two identically bright splashes of late clementine-colored sun, streaks of light getting tangled in his hair. The _feeling_ , the strongest need to get closer to Eli flooded Steve in a total of four seconds, so he squatted down and closed the space between them in several small waggish steps. 

Eli was looking at him. As soon as the distance allowed, he took Steve’s big square palm with his spare hand and gave him a small squeeze. 

“You mean, like, animal-weird or creeper-weird?” He asked, wrinkling his nose in order to stop his glasses from sliding further down the bridge of his nose. Steve adjusted the glasses with his index finger - thoughtlessly, out of a simple habit, leaving a mental note to self that simple habits of taking care of Eli felt so much better than simple habits of stuffing him into a locker or punching him with a ball on a PE lesson. One part of Steve was forever going to look down on him because of that history. The other part was just happy that history was over. Buried deep and coated with lots of sugar. 

“Actually,” Steve said, carefully weighing every word on his tongue, “I have no idea what I mean. Now that you’ve mentioned the creepers. Could it be one?”

They both stared at the dog for quite some time. The dog paid them no obvious attention, only used its hind leg to scratch behind its ear. No other reaction was given. 

“I’m going to use a trick on it,” Eli finally said. 

“A trick? Like what?”

“We have to remind it of something creeper-related. We will catch it off guard and be able to judge by its reaction whether this really is a creature of darkness or…” He stumbled. “...just a really picturesque dog.” 

“I have no idea how exactly you’re gonna do this,” Steve avowed. “But go on.” 

Eli looked him in the eyes, squeezed his hand one more time and gave him a solemn nod. There was a short period of thoughtful silence while Eli was, apparently, getting ready to perform his trick and Steve was just looking at the road. 

A field. They were sitting in a field near to some sort of a tiny scanty forest _(Ha! Forest! More like twelve trees and a bush)_. They had to stop here because Eli desperately needed to pee and there was no sign of public toilets on the way, so Steve had parked right on the roadside and waited outside of the car, pressing his haunches against the warm metal of the front door. And then Eli walked right out of the coppice, and this _thing_ was following him. Never in the past five years did Steve feel himself so close to immediately grabbing a bat and slamming the hell out of whatever looked like it might hurt Eli. 

Well, there he was. 

He glanced at Eli. Eli looked extremely concentrated. Steve was just about to ask him what exactly he was up to, but then Eli turned his head to the dog and clenched his fists. 

The dog looked back at him, expression neutral and carrying more bliss than that old wallpaper from Windows XP. 

“G… Gunmar!” Eli yelled. 

He was now studying the dog with the intensity that could have been enough to burn a hole through a brick wall. Steve felt pressure coiling in his shins. He tried to get as ready as possible for the worst case scenario with the dog actually turning out to be some devious creature and trying to attack any of them. 

And… nothing happened.  
The devious creature blinked - slowly, lazily. 

“Well, it was supposed to react somehow. I am now much more sure this is just a poor dog. Maybe it has had a sunstroke,” Eli said, voice thoughtful and meditative. “Then we need to take it home. Wash it, feed it, use a horseshoe on it and then, if it confirms its simple dog nature, we can take it to an animal shelter.” 

Steve choked on a breath of air. Things have taken an unexpected turn.

“We - what?” 

“A horseshoe! A gaggletack! Remember the one we got from Jim? You know, in case this is not just a dark creature, but a shapeshifter!” Eli looked at the dog in an affronting manner, as if he expected the potential shapeshifter to feel guilty and to turn itself in. 

But again - nothing happened. Except for this: just a couple of seconds later the dog got up, stretched its suspiciously long legs, arched its patchy back, slowly spinned on its axis sniffing the ground at the same time, and then went completely still. Its head was now turned to Eli, eyes clean and surprisingly smart. Steve could tell Eli was melting into this new acquaintance. For some reason establishing a decent level of communication with a weary stray dog seemed to be his matter of honor. 

Steve stood up. Eli did the same. With a dog standing next to his skinny leg covered in pink mosquito bites he looked like a young Pokemon trainer. 

“By the way, it’s a boy! I saw the proof when he turned around!” Eli exclaimed, completely happy about the whole situation.

“Nice!” Steve said, his tongue thick with fake amusement, the kind of voice used when the person _clearly_ doesn’t find any of the current events at least somewhat nice. But the whole thing seemed to be important to Eli, the same way poor old Flip-the-Brave-Flour-Offspring was quite some time (and a couple of confessions) ago. Steve was tired. To tell the truth, he was exhausted - from the long drive, from a week of intense football practice, from trying to keep his head up above the thick ocean-like surface of college stuff. He wanted to get home, to take a real shower, and - _that would have been very nice, thanks, - and yes, Steve Palchuk didn’t use the word “nice” out loud, but wasn’t he free of such limitations in his own head,_ \- to cuddle with his boyfriend.  
(He didn’t use the word “cuddle” as well. Not out loud. On the same terms.) 

His boyfriend, however, was giving him _the look._  
The please-let’s-sneak-out-at-night-to-go-check-the-place-we-saw-that-goblin-last-time look.  
The let’s-go-visit-my-mom-over-the-weekend-she’s-been-dying-to-play-scrabble-with-us-once-again look.  
The let’s-take-this-ugly-dog-home-and-probably-end-up-keeping-him-forever look. 

Steve Palchuk didn’t find many things in his life irresistible, so in some ways Eli Pepperjack recompensed all of them.

Steve turned back to the car. His eye gave a slight twitch. He took a deep breath.

_Alright_ , he thought. 

Alright.

Steve watched Eli getting into the back seat through the rearview mirror, then watched him dragging the dog inside. He was mesmerized. He started the car slowly. The whole situation seemed surreal. 

Without any comments, Eli delved in his backpack and presented a big pack of lavender baby wipes to the world. 

“Oh Lord,” Steve said. He tried glancing towards the back seat and concentrating on the road at the same time and it looked like he turned into one of those bobblehead toys. 

Eli pulled out a baby wipe. Then he showed his open palm to the dog. 

“May I have your paw, sir?” He asked in the most subtle and delicate manner, as if he was asking this creature (that, of course, _still_ looked like a bike in a muddy casing) for a dance. 

The dog stayed unamused. One if his ragged ears made a lazy perking move but then laid back flat on his ridiculously flat triangle head. _Not much for the brain behind this tiny forehead,_ Steve thought. Then his thoughts have somehow (thought this was not an unfamiliar route) raced to Eli. His small beaming face, and his soft messy hair, and his loud sparkly voice, and his habit of making gentle muffled noises against Steve’s neck, and the way he loved dividing a sentence into separate words, every word to be said directly into Steve’s lips in between short, smile-to-smile kisses. 

Steve’s stomach made what felt like turning upside down - but in a nice and pleasant way. His heart burned. He turned his head to look at Eli, who was now leisurely cleaning the dog’s front paw with a baby wipe that was rapidly turning a very muddy shade of brown. The dog still looked _more_ not having a care in the world than a whole school gym of 14-year-old moody teenagers. Eli looked back at him. He sent Steve a grin that immediately made Steve’s heart wade through a sweet tingly glitch. 

For an absolutely stupid (and not completely understandable) reason, he suddenly felt horrible for thinking bad about the dog’s intellect. The clumsy urge to make up for this and to show the creepy animal some care spilled down Steve’s spine and tickled the tips of his fingers. 

“Does he look like he’s sick? From the ride?” He blurted, his face turning serious and sympathetic. “I can go slower, if you want.”

There was a vague memory that hit him like a suction cup arrow in his temple, memory of saying the same exact thing some time earlier. To Eli. The context was slowly floating out of the brain mist. And something told Steve this context was going to be completely different.

Eli let out a giggle. And then a single giggle turned into a portion of giggles and multiplied into a whole series of giggles. _Ow_ , Steve thought. The context. After more than five years of dating, it was probably the time to convince his ears to stop turning into _damn bonfires_ when anything sexual was mentioned. He was a jock, after all, the best on his football team, perfectly build, loved, accepted and trusted. Still considered a narcissistic asshole by some, but what can you do. Point being: he was not supposed to be the type of person to get embarrassed about anything related to sex.

Yet he was. He was that very person.  
Eli, to his credit, said nothing about an obvious opportunity to make some fried eggs on Steve’s ears. He stopped giggling. He pretended to be busy with a thorough inspection of the dog’s muzzle in order to find any signs of discomfort and motion sickness. After a couple of minutes he looked in the rearview mirror. 

“All good, Steve,” he said in a ding-dong voice. “I guess our pal is alright!” 

Steve nodded, his expression ten times more gallant than it was required by the situation. Then he focused on the road; the warm feeling of Eli gazing at him through the mirror wreathed a soft nest on the back of his head. His arms were steady on the steering wheel and his ears still felt a little bit abnormally warm. 

The weird size of the dog became only more prominent when Steve had put him into the bathtub. Some part of him - the same part that was scared senseless when a hypothetical raccoon in the garage turned out to be something completely different, - grabbed the handle of a metaphorical fire alarm, ready to pull it anytime.The dog, however, seemed to be completely comfortable with the setting. Even the gaggletack, which was put right under the dog’s nose as soon as it stepped into the house, was perceived as something potentially interesting and presumably harmless. No bright flashes of light, no visual changes in the dog’s appearance, it was still the same weird hatrack dog. Steve was not sure if the failed gaggletack experiment made him feel any less alarmed about the animal, yet he still followed Eli into the bathroom and sat on the bathtub edge, watching over, trying to pay as much attention as he could. 

Eli was furiously rubbing Steve’s shampoo into the dog’s short fur. This was supposed to be the second rinse since the first didn’t seem to clean all the dry dirt. There was foam all over the place, and the sight of the dog tucked into a soft white soapy cloud reminded Steve of his long time gone friend. This was why his mom named her Soap: because their dog absolutely adored taking baths and would always come to Steve’s mom with a wrapped soap bar in her mouth. She would also jump into a full bathtub if there was already someone she felt comfortable around in; she would make a complete mess and turn the bathroom into a sea battle scene, she would leave wet pawprints all around the house, she would be _begging_ with her eyes to let her sleep on an actual human bed afterwards, which was strictly forbidden by Steve’s dad, - but Steve would let her. He would _absolutely_ let her nap on his bed. 

“You okay?” He heard Eli asking. He blinked. He rubbed his face with his forearm.

“Yea, I’m good. You having any progress?” 

“Much progress!” Eli grinned at him, directing the water stream from the shower to the soapiest places on the dog’s scrawny chest. “This would probably need the third time, though… He’s so slim! I wonder for how long he has been out there in the wild!” 

_For his whole life,_ Steve thought. _Look at the hobo dog. I’m doing this because you are doing this, but_ why _are_ you _doing this?_

The second rinse water was still murky. Eli had a strange expression, heavily armed with criticism when he was examining the results of his endeavors.

“No,” he finally said. “This definitely needs one more try.”

He opened the shampoo bottle cap for the third time. He somehow looked victorious. 

Leaving _the poor buddy_ to rest while Eli would go buy him some “proper dog food” was the plan. Steve asked why couldn’t they just feed him with Friday leftovers. For some reason Eli seemed to be irritated by the suggestion; the look he gave Steve was very similar to some of the looks he was receiving from Eli quite a lot after they had just become friends: the “you’re-doing-it-wrong-but-i-know-you-can-do-better” looks.  
(As it turned out, Eli had a handful of different looks - it would require a huge book a size of a highschool album in order to categorize all of them.) 

Steve put two big fluffy towels on the bathroom floor to absorb all the water that had spilled out of the tub and went into the living room where Eli was, apparently, taking a series of quick pictures of the dog. He was jumping around the room like a fancy photographer, bending over and falling down to his knees to capture the best angle. The dog stayed classically nonchalant. Insensitive. _Pococurante._

“Judging by the level of your parental dedication,” Steve said. “This must now be Flip the Second?” 

Eli looked up at him from the phone. His nose wrinkled in a sign of disapproval. “I don’t think you’re showing enough respect for the war hero.” 

Steve blinked. “War hero? You mean this creature?” 

“No,” Eli said. “I mean Flip the First. If it wasn’t for him in the crucial moment, the story might have had a very different ending.”

He took a couple more photos and shoved the phone into his jeans pocket. 

“And I’m only taking pictures of him to show them to people who actually know something about dog breeds. I heard it might be unhealthy for some breeds to be fed with an unsuitable type of food.”

To Steve, it was obvious that the dog had already had his amount of unhealthiness. He wasn’t sure if a can of wrong dog food could do any noticeable harm since the dog was probably already enough weather-beaten. He also had no idea what stray dogs were usually consuming while being out in the wild. Small animals? Something from trash cans? Trees? Rocks? Each other? Whatever it was, seemed to be working for this one. Steve still thought a plate of Friday leftovers was a nice option for Flip the Second. Probably much nicer than anything he had ever tasted up to that point of his bitter dog life. 

“Okay, then go,” he said to Eli, watching carefully as the dog was sniffing their couch. “I’ll try to set up a bed for him. Somewhere. I don’t know. Just don’t take too long! He’s creeping me out...”

Eli chuckled. The sound was soft and squishy like a marshmallow piece. Steve opened his arms, and Eli stepped into the embrace. Steve pressed his forearm to the small of Eli’s back.

Just like any other time they hugged, Steve was taken aback by how huge he was in comparison with Eli. He was already much bigger when they were both in high school, but after graduation he only seemed to continue growing, both broadwise and lengthwise. Eli has had his fair share of puberty growth, but he was still _small._ And this made hugging him an incredible experience - made Steve feel _capable._ Made him feel like he was big and strong enough to protect another person - the feeling he was probably lacking the most during the years of elementary and middle school. 

Somehow Eli made it simple. Perfect.

Steve breathed out into the crown of Eli’s head. Eli’s own breath was warm and chaste against Steve’s collarbone. 

They parted, both looking unsuitably ceremonial. Then Eli raised on the tips of his toes to kiss Steve’s chin, the curve of his lips, the tip of his nose. 

“Go,” Steve said, taking Eli’s fingers in his hand just for a short moment, then letting Eli’s palm slip away. “I hope I will not get eaten by a stray field dog.”

“You’re a Creepslayer, you’ll be fine,” Eli protested. “And I’ll be right back! But give me a call if you feel… eh… like you need to give me a call!” 

A few steps away from the porch, Eli turned back for a moment to put his tongue out at Steve, so Steve just had to repay him with the same gesture. 

(His perfidious ears were _on fire._ )

The phone rang half an hour after Eli’s departure. Steve had told Flip the Second to know his place, and the dog (if anybody asked Steve, he would have said this was a suspiciously smart move… for a dog) immediately went to the kitchen and curled atop the freshly-erected pile of Steve’s old polo shirts. Steve considered the boundary set and went into the living room. He was watching a boring baseball match on mute. He nearly jumped when his phone started vibrating on a couch pillow. 

“Hello, the Midnight Boy’s here,” he said, picking it up. 

“Steve!” Eli called from the other side of the telephone line. 

They both have sort of progressed past puberty, but Eli’s voice has not. Yes, he was speaking lower than during his sophomore year, but there still was a glossy, sonant undertone to his vivid timbre. The High School Steve would have simply called Eli’s voice “feminine”, but the Grown Up, Responsible and Thinking-Before-Acting Steve had invented a more accurate term for it. The term was “watermelon- _y”_ , because Eli always sounded like someone who has just had a bite of the most luscious and icy-cold watermelon crescent on a hot sunny day. That’s what it was like - to Steve, at least. 

“Don’t panic, but I need you to leave the house!” Eli said. Which was a bad strategy, because if there were twenty, maybe thirty people on Earth who would not start freaking out after hearing somebody telling them not to panic, Steve definitely was not one of those people. 

“What?! Wh-- Why?”

“Flip. Flip the Second.”

“What about him?” Steve had already stood up from the couch. “Is he a creeper? But the gaggleta--”

“No!” Eli blurted, clearly panicking himself despite his own advice for Steve not to panic. “He’s a… He’s a _coyote!_ Apparently! I showed the pictures to a lady in the store, and she... She said...“

A cold avalanche of shivers marched down Steve’s spine. He turned around quickly, as if he was expecting Flip the Second to eavesdrop his phone conversation from the kitchen and come for an early reprisal. From now on, Steve thought, no more laughing at every character who suddenly realizes the wicked monster was in here the whole time. Scenes with the main hero standing with their back turned to some dark gloomy cave and a dragon slowly creeping out of there? _Not funny. Not at all._

That’s why damned Flip the Second had such a weird head for a dog! And wide pointy ears! And his height… _Sweet baby Lord!_

“Look, Steve, I’m so sorry we took him in! I didn’t mean for it to happen! And I _definitely_ didn’t want to leave you all alone with a _freaking coyote!_ But the lady here… She said coyotes do not attack people! Almost. They _mostly_ never attack people. And if they do, and I must highlight the word _“if”,_ they do not appreciate long car rides and do not wait until getting into a human house… And the evil ones, the _really_ bad ones, never feel okay about getting washed!!.. Steve! Are you there?” 

While Eli was talking, Steve tiptoed softly into the kitchen, holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder. 

Flip the Second was sleeping on a pile of Steve’s old clothes, his _too-long_ legs sticking out of the cloth and laying idly across the kitchen floor tiles. He looked even more peaceful than NotEnrique on his best acting days, and he _immediately_ snapped out of his sleep when Steve stepped into the kitchen.

Flip the Second looked into Steve’s eyes as if he was wondering what had happened to the boundaries. 

Then he yawned. His mouth was full of crooked yellow teeth. They were sticking out of his gums like ivory sabers buried in greyish sand. 

_“STEVE!”_

“Ah? Oh, I’m sorry, Eli, I’m here. I’m okay. I was merely watching TV the whole time you were out. And the beast was sleeping.” He paused. _The evil ones._ He could hear Eli shuffling nervously. 

“So I guess we _could_ call him a coyote ugly, after all,” Steve said, and there was no particular reason for him to say this out loud. 

Eli breathed out, obviously relieved.

“Coyote not very ugly, coyote pretty descent,” he said, “But I’m still calling the Wildlife Center.” 

Right after the call Steve hurried to turn the TV off and left the house to wander around the yard. He checked the door several times. The Little Buddy was - or acted like it, - sleeping pacifically. 

Flip the Second accepted his exile with royal nobility: he was ridiculously placid while he was escorted into the Wildlife Center van. The van had thunderous green doors with orange pawprints drawn across them. Steve counted the pawprints four times in a row while Eli was just blankly watching the men in emerald uniforms. Steve heard one of them saying to another, 

“Look, it is so freakishly clean…” one of the men said, his voice lightly coated with confusion. 

“I have washed him,” Eli cried from where they were sitting on a pavement next to each other with Steve, thigh to thigh and hip to hip. “Thrice!”

The men send Eli the look that immediately made Steve feel hostile and steely. He furrowed his brows, he almost made an attempt to jump on his feet and yell something back, something that would have been equally rude in comparison to that look, but Eli’s skinny pale hand with small soft wart scars has found its way to Steve’s leg. Eli tapped his thigh lightly. This felt so much like their last year of high school: Eli coming to Steve’s football practices to cheer for him no matter what Steve’s teammates were saying, Eli completely freezing to the bleachers, Eli staying there anyway until it was utterly dark, his shape small and bright against the tar-colored sky, Eli bringing him weird chocolate cookies that tasted kind of like cardboard paper sprinkled with some cocoa. Eli’s shoulders getting lost in the scope of Steve’s football jacket. Colored flashes scattering from the soles of his light up shoes. His expression, the kind of bright look that still made Steve think of him every time “Total Eclipse of the Heart” came on the radio.  
Turn around, bright eyes, and please, _please_ don’t turn away. 

Steve lifted his own hand and placed it atop of Eli’s palm, then gave his fingers a light squeeze.

“I think we’re not gonna find another dog like him,” Eli said. “For some reason, this makes me sad.”

There was a moment of confused silence. 

“...because… he was _not_ a dog?” Steve suggested. _And because we’ve known him for, like, a couple of hours, and_ thank God _these hours did not turn into a lifetime with a coyote_ , his mind completed, but Steve was not going to voice that thought.  
He felt pretty helpless. And even more stupid, because his boyfriend was about to cloud up from handing a freaking coyote over to the Wildlife Center, like a good citizen, and in Steve’s head, on a specific shelf that was signed as ‘Ways to cheer him up’, there was an absolute void.

“Well...” he tried. “If there was the first… and now is the second, I have a feeling the third is on the way as well. And, considering the species diversity for our Flips, we have a good chance of the next one being something less dangerous.”

Eli beamed at him, and Steve’s whole heart trembled, the feeling radiating blandly into the back of his throat, his ribcage, the apples of his cheeks. 

“You’re right! Something in between a bag of flour and a coyote on a risk scale would actually seem nice.” 

“We could get you a stupid fish,” Steve suggested. “Flip the Third. The name actually suits a fish, you know. Fins. Stuff like that.” He tried mimicking a fish flipping its fins, his wrists pressed to his sides as he was waving rapidly with his hands. Eli laughed at him - lightly, in a good-natured manner. He adjusted his glasses. 

“We could get _us_ a fish. And fishes are not that stupid.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Whatever. I mean, I trust you.” 

He was thinking about Soap. The memory did not seem completely sad, yet it kind of tasted like a candy with a sour center. They both watched as the van drove off. Thankfully there was no sight of Flip the Second dramatically pressing his triangle muzzle into the lattice. 

“I can’t believe we thought of trolls and changelings, but not about a coyote,” Eli said. He was now cleaning his glasses with the hem of his t-shirt. 

“Nah,” Steve said. “ _That’s_ not surprising at all. You’ve seen a troll. _And_ a changeling. So I guess, this makes meeting them, in our experience, much more likely than meeting a coyote. It’s okay.” 

He nudged Eli’s shoulder, lightly. “Come on, Pepperbuddy, raise your pepperbutt. The pavement is cold and I am _starving.”_

“Okay, this is really stupid, but you know what I thought?” Eli said while they were picking Steve’s old shirts from the kitchen floor, the fabric still slightly damp. “We are Two Men in a House.”

Then, both of them at the same time: 

“To say nothing of the dog.”

A _freaking coyote,_ Steve thought, giving Eli a habitual high-five. 

And maybe, just maybe, he also thought about googling a local animal shelter. 

Just in case.


End file.
